Saturday 5 December 2009

On Decompression. duvets and disaster

Today is the day of Decompression, the annual London Burning Man party. It's a very exciting affair, full of all the performance, art and elaborate costuming that one would expect from a Burning event. My friend Katie and I decided to get stuck in this year and organise a room. Both of us are incapable of getting through an all-night party without a little snooze in the corner somewhere, so we came up with the idea (well, Katie came up with the idea and I agreed enthusiastically) of a sleep room. A mobile bedroom where people could come for a disco nap. We're setting up a bed, providing people with earplugs and eyemasks and making a note of when they want to be gently woken from their slumbers.

Knowing that I would have to go straight to the venue to help set up after work today, I set my alarm early to allow myself plenty of time to get everything packed up for the event.
You can see it coming can't you?
The crushing inevitability of what happened next?
Yeah, my alarm didn't go off. I woke up with just 30 minutes to pack up everything I needed, get showered, ready and out to work. I made it to work on time - miraculously - with dripping wet hair and no make-up on, then realised I'd forgotten the duvet I was supposed to bring and my ticket. Oh well, not major disasters. I can get away with showing my email confirmation and ID instead of the ticket, and we have other duvets.

Unfortunately, as I wrote this, we were informed that the futon we were borrowing has suddenly become unavailable. We are now, with just 6 hours until kick off, without a bed for our bedroom. This is a problem. We've sent out pleas on the Burning Man mailing lists and on Facebook, and can now only cross our fingers that it'll all be alright on the night!

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